A Divided “Afterlife”

By Jana Pollack, New Rep Reviewer

Steve Yockey’s “Afterlife: A Ghost Story” is a puzzling piece of theater. In examining the way a couple deals with losing a young child, it takes two entirely different approaches. The first act is grounded in reality, the here and now – the play opens with the couple, Danielle and Connor, returning to their beach house for the first time since their son drowned there. For the entirety of the act, we watch them struggle in different ways. Danielle is unable to escape her deep sorrow and guilt; Connor claims to have let his go. The disconnect causes a rift between them, and the push and pull as they try to find a way to survive together is fascinating and deeply sad.

When act two opens, though, it is clear that the previous play – the play set in this world – is over. Yockey has now placed Danielle and Connor in an alternate reality of sorts, where they must try to come to terms with the tragic death of their son. Gone is the lovely beach house setting, and in its place is a dark, unrecognizable land. Gone, too, is the realistic, relatable dialogue – now, for the most part, the characters speak only in long, cryptic speeches. A whole new cast of characters is introduced, and it’s not clear what is going on, or what the point is.

This is a jarring, disjointed change, and it came as a bit of a shock. In the first act, Yockey’s script begins to uncover insights into the human condition, despite the realistic trappings of the setting. In the second act, where insights are meant to be plentiful, I found the setting and language to be overly symbolic, and the cost of that was the loss of meaningful discoveries about the human ability to survive devastation.

As always at New Rep, though, this play is exquisitely acted. In the role of Danielle, Mairanna Bassham gives a beautiful performance. From the moment we see her, placing her bag on the ground before she steels herself and enters the house, her suffering is both real and muted, and she carries this intensity throughout the piece. In the role of Connor, Thomas Piper is the perfect foil for Danielle; immediately, his forced cheer gives away his pain.

The show is also technically excellent. David Remedios’ sound design is a large, effective presence, as is Karen Parsons’ lighting. These combine to make the ocean a palpable presence throughout, which Yockey’s script demands.

This play is supposed to present an idea about the afterlife, and it does put forth ideas about what might happen when we die. However, the part that allows its characters to navigate loss in this life is ultimately the most compelling, and the most insightful.